Smoke and Mirrors
by Adele Starminster
Summary: When Alys Blackwell made seven prophecies, she didn't realize that she laid out the way to kill a demon not yet born. In 2004, Drea Russell, her decsendant, seven friends, and three familiar time travelers, must decode it- before it's too late!
1. In which Drea loses her temper

A/N: This is just an insane idea that popped in my head. I'm running with it.

Disclaimer: I'm a fourteen year old ninth grader with nothing to my name. Do I sound like I own anything? Heck, I don't even own a copy of the movie! Besides Drea, Raze, Lysander, Ella, Gwen, Celeste, and Cricket.

Smoke and Mirrors

Chapter One: In which Drea gets in a fight and magic is ample

Fourteen year old Drea Russell was fuming. She and one of her friends, Lysander, had just had a knockdown, drag out fight. She pushed a stubborn black curl out of her smoky green eyes, wondering whether it was possible to kill with a glare. If so, Lysander would have died a slow, painful, death.

Her head shot up when she heard a shout. What the heck? She thought. Not many people live near here, and fewer are out after dark.

She silently crept up to the source of the noise.

Drea swore at the sight before her.

A group of three, two men and a woman, were franticly holding off what looked like four overgrown bats. They were doing pretty good, but they were out numbered, and the smaller man was shaking. Drea smiled grimly. _I guess should try to even out the odds._

She did the only thing she could think of. She ran in, yelling.

She did a double take at the sight of one of the bat-thingies turning into a dark haired man.

"And who are you, my dear?"

Drea raised an eyebrow. "A girl." The man glared at her. She shrugged. "Hey, ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer."

The humans in the area were looking at Drea like she was crazy. Which wasn't far from the truth. She was still in a bad mood because of Lysander, and therefore had little common sense.

But she had enough common sense to duck when a white bat-creature swooped at her. "Hey, watch where you're swooping!" she yelled. She was starting to get in a screw-it-all mood, which would not bode well for those bat-creatures.

When she was grabbed from behind, what was left of her temper was shattered. She stomped on the foot of her captor, not caring how much she got hurt, as long as the people she was fighting were hurting worse.

She held out a palm, and muttered something, calling a gray fire into her palm. She hurled it at the redheaded woman who had grabbed her, watching in satisfaction as she was thrown back into a tree. To her surprise- she hadn't used that much power- the woman screamed and shriveled up into ash.

To her surprise, to two bat-creatures and the dark haired man flew away.

"What were they?" Drea breathed. In her five years as a junior witch, she had never seen anything like that before.

"Vampires. The one you just killed was called Aleera. She was one of Dracula's brides." Said the woman, who had dark hair and eyes.

"We might inquire as to what you are, miss, "said the small man. Drea rolled her eyes.

"I'm a witch, what did you think I was?"

"A name would also prove helpful," he prompted.

"Deirdre Trisana Russell, A.K.A. Drea, A.K.A. Magiatrix Traz," she drawled, attempting to lean against a tree. Keyword being attempting. She missed, instead sprawling onto the ground, nearly impaling herself on a stick.

"Traz attack," she muttered. She straightened herself, mind racing. The bat-creatures seemed familiar, but where did she see it…

"Aw, s!#," she breathed. It was that movie, Van Helsing. She had only saw part of it, but she realized that all of them were characters from a movie.

"Someone's been doing serious magic." Drea's voice was shaky. "And I want to know who."

"How would you find out?" the third man asked.

"I can scry, but I don't know if it will work. So I'm just gonna get all four of us safely out of the range of the freaky bat creatures." She retorted, dragging all three towards her house.

"I like that idea," the shorter man added.

"First, names, please," she asked. Just to be sure.

"Gabriel Van Helsing."

"Anna Velarious."

"Carl."

"I see." Drea turned the knob on her door, letting the sound of Evenesance hit her ears.

"Come on in."

Coming Soon: Chapter Two: In which Drea does some explaining and Ella gets mad


	2. In which Introductions are Made

Smoke and Mirrors

Chapter Two: In Which Drea gives Explanations

A/N: GAH! My (deleted) computer got (deleted) (DELETED) HOT CHOCOLATE on the MONITOR, and because the (deleted) thing's seven or so years old, I have to get a new one! (Adele precedes to swear silently for ten minutes.) I had the next FOUR chapters of this on it, and now I have to redo them! Oh well, so it goes.

Drea walked over to two teenagers playing checkers, allowing the slightly dazed trio to talk amongst themselves.

"How do we know we can trust this girl?" Anna asked angrily.

"She did kill Aleera," Van Helsing pointed out.

"That's true." Carl agreed. "But why were there three Brides?"

"I don't know? Maybe this Drea girl brought Marishka back!" Anna said.

"I did NOT!" Drea bellowed the last word.

"Drea, what's going on?" The speaker was a blonde girl with light blue eyes, and she towered over Drea.

"Gwen, you know how weird things happen every once in a while around me…" Drea started.

"Like when Mrs. Dawson's science lab broke, and the time the power short circuited, and when Morgan conveniently "tripped" during his final after he kept bugging you," interrupted a boy with sandy blonde hair and green eyes.

"Lysander, shut up." Drea's voice was tired. "I'm serious. Gwen, can you get the others?" Gwen nodded and vanished into the hall for a moment, returning with three other girls. "Alrighty then. The girl with the black glasses is Cricket, she's Lysander's sister."

"Take my book and die," she said holding aloft a battered copy of The Hound of the Baskervilles, gray eyes dangerous. Her dark brown hair was wavy, and fell to past her shoulders.

"Colleen's her real name, and I swear she knows that stupid book by heart," commented a redheaded girl, hazel eyes dancing. " I'm Raze."

"And I'm Ella," said a girl with black hair and brown eyes.

"Okay well, now they've introduced themselves, that's Anna, Carl, and Van Helsing." Drea counted to three.

"WHAT!" Blastoff.

"Well in a nutshell, I'm a witch, and when I went to take my not-killing-Lysander-for-being-an idiot walk, I found these three, fighting Dracula, Aleera…"

"Marishka and Verona," Anna said.

"Yeah, them. Well, Aleera grabbed me, and, well, I was more than a little annoyed, and I used a little magic to get Aleera off me. But she reacted badly and exploded." Drea looked a little sheepish.

"Well she probably would have killed you first," Cricket pointed out. She was pale at the thought.

"So what are we gonna DO about it?" Ella scowled.

"Anna, Carl and I are going to continue hunting Dracula. You are going to stay here."

"Not a chance," Raze snorted.

"He'll kill you!" Gwen squeaked.

"We want to help," Cricket said steadily. "You're too close to the problem, a fresh set of eyes is what's needed."

"What Cricket said," Lysander added.

"Besides, our fates are already bound in this, as well as one other," Drea said calmly.

"What do you mean?" Anna asked.

"Have you ever heard of the Prophecies of the Shadows?" Drea's eyes were sparkling.

"I think I ran across a reference to them in the Vatican library." Carl said excitedly. "They were said to tell how to destroy a great evil."

"And you neglected to mention this why?" Anna said. Carl was silent.

"Carl, we're waiting." Van Helsing growled.

"No one has the actual prophecies."

"No one without magic, actually," Cricket guessed.

"Yes, I have them, they're in the Book." Drea smiled.

"Book?" Ella asked. Drea shook her head.

"The Book of Night with Moon, sort of a textbook for the girls in my family." Drea explained.

"Why the girls?" asked Lysander.

"The boys have another book, the Book of Sun Without Clouds." Drea grimaced. "The boys in my family have a different type of magic, more showy."

"Showy?" Raze questioned.

"They tend to specialize in explosions."

"Oh." A knocking at the door interrupted them.

"That would be my mom with Maggie." Gwen said darkly.

"Maggie?" Van Helsing asked.

"My little sister."

"Oh." Cricket, being the most presentable in a black sweater and jeans, went to the front hall and opened the door.

"Hello, Mrs. Holmes."

"Hello, Colleen. Maggie's been very excited to come."

"Yup!" said a cheerful voice.

"Cool, Maggie. Guess what? I found that movie you wanted to see!" Cricket, who liked Maggie, frequently baby-sat her.

"Really?"

"What movie?" Mrs. Holmes' voice sounded nervous.

"The Great Mouse Detective!" Maggie laughed

"Oh, all right. If it's alright, can you pick up Maggie after school?"

"Of course!"

"Thank you. Goodbye, Magpie!"

"Bye, Mommy!" The door closed.

Cricket walked back, followed by a wiry girl of seven with strawberry blonde hair and green hazel eyes. "Who's that, Cricket?" the little girl asked curiously, pointing at the trio from the past.

"That's Anna, Carl, and Van Helsing," Ella said. Maggie looked confused, but nodded.

"What's up, Magpie?" Lysander asked.

"The ceiling, the sky, and that bat thingy!" Maggie said.

"Bat thingy!?" Everyone whirled to the window, where Marishka was in bat form, watching them. Gwen grabbed Maggie, Van Helsing grabbed his crossbow, and Drea raised a hand with glowing gray fire. The bride cackled, and flew away.

"Gwen, what's going on?"

"Long story, sweetling." Gwen replied.

"I think it would be a very good idea to read the prophecies now." Anna said.

"Prophecies?" Maggie frowned.

A/N: That was two or three chapters, only with major editing.

Next Week: In which the prophecies are read.


	3. In which the prophecy is read

Smoke and Mirrors

Chapter Four

Five minutes later, Maggie, seated on Gwen's lap, stared open mouthed at Drea. "That creepy bat was a vampire? Like in ghost stories?" Cricket grinned sheepishly as Gwen glared at her.

"Yes, but who told you ghost stories?" Gwen asked the seven year old. Maggie's green hazel eyes glittered with laughter as she pointed at Cricket, who paled.

"Please don't kill me, Gwen." Carl, Anna, and Van Helsing looked at each other. Raze rolled her eyes.

"Chill, you two, it isn't as if she read anything really spooky to Magpie here." Ella raised an eyebrow at Cricket's nervous smile.

"Anyway, don't you guys remember a certain prophecy? Might tell us how to get rid of Dracula? Or am I the only one who cares about an evil demon loose in the town?" Ella's voice was icy.

"Ella's right. We need to destroy Dracula before anyone else gets hurt." Van Helsing said.

"Yes, we can't waste any more time," Anna said descisively.

Drea nodded absentmindedly. "Here it is.

"In the depths of the night

lies a hunger none can fight

on Devil's wing's they fly

beware of a darkened sky

Try you might

You cannot win the fight

Save by the gray power

And the prize of the tower

Those of two times must unite

Lest darkness clouds all's sight

Seven plus three

Shall they be

The girl of the moor shall know all

The dove shall not let them fall

The friar, princess, and twin

Shall be pivotal to win

The little bird and girl of the moor

Shall face the gold creature of lore

The dark one raised from her pyre

Shall face her of fire

The sister shall cause darkness ruin

The wolf of the moon shall hang in the balance soon

An era of darkness must not begin

Learn caution to win

Under the brightest moonlight

The fall of the prince of night

This is not the final battle of the war

The unenchanted shall - the door."

"Well, parts of it are very clear," Carl stated optimistically. Lysander looked at him.

"Yes, as clear as mud." The boy sighed. Cricket's gray eyes rolled heavenwards.

"You are a royal pain, 'Sander. The first part tells- quite clearly, I might add- that this is about Dracula and the Brides. The second states that you need the "gray power", and "the prize of the tower" to win."

"Cricket, you have SO read The Hound of the Baskervilles one too many times," Raze smirked, prompting the shorter girl to smack the redhead.

"Hey, that story is set on a moor, right?" Gwen spoke up. Cricket nodded. "Maybe you're the "Girl of the Moor"." Anna nodded at that.

"I am likely the "princess", and Carl is the "friar". Mr. Van Helsing, any thoughts on the matter?" she asked curiously. He thought carefully.

"I think that Drea should copy down the Prophecy for Cricket to work on." Drea nodded sleepily. Gwen looked at the clock.

"My god, look at the time! We have school tomorrow! Bed, now!" Gwen said. "Carl, Van Helsing, Drea might take you to pick out sleeping stuff for tonight." Drea grinned wickedly and grabbed the two men.

S M O K E A N D M I R R O R S

Drea led them in a small room. "This is my dad's room. He's on a business trip, so he won't be around for a while." Carl looked at her curiously.

"Where is your mother?" Drea's face clouded over. "I'm sorry, Drea, I didn't mean to upset you." Drea smiled sadly.

"It's OK, Carl. Mom died on an assignment, sorta like what you do, Van Helsing. I was eight at the time." Drea's green eyes focused sharply on Van Helsing's left side. "Now, let me take care of that wound." Van Helsing's eyes widened.

"How did you-"

"-know? I've trained as a healer for years. I'm one of the top in my class. Honestly, I think _Lysander_ might have realized something, god knows Cricket and Gwen did. Let me see." At the irritated tone in the teen's voice, Carl grinned slightly at Van Helsing. Van Helsing rolled his eyes at the girl as she inspected the bite.

"My hand to god! Did ANY of you EVER heard of clean bandages! I wouldn't be surprised if a zillion and one diseases are in that bite. What made it, so I can heal the stupid thing?" Drea said, flipping though the Book.

"A werewolf." Drea raised an eyebrow, but still flipped through the Book.

"Ah, to clean it I need essence of…" she rattled off names while grabbing several glass vials and pouring varying amounts of the contents on a clean white cloth. She held the cloth to the wound and said "We're gonna need to stop at the Moonlight Café, a sort of store for witches who use the Book of Night with Moon tomorrow to get ingredients for a self-control potion. I don't need you to go around killing anybody on me."

"So your Book doesn't have a cure either?" Van Helsing asked sadly. Drea shook her head and muttered something under her breath. Gray fire shuttled around the wound until it was fully healed. She pulled out two pairs of pajamas and handed them to Carl. She said a good night and tottered to sleep.

Van Helsing looked at where the bite had been. It was gone.

"Now that's a talent I'd like to have," he muttered.


	4. In which Cricket hates Latin

Smoke and Mirrors

The Real Chapter Four: In which Dracula's New Secret Plan is Revealed and Cricket Hates Latin

A/N: My sincerest apologies for the delay. This chapter's original copy got lost. Sorry! PS- It gets crazy in this chapter.

Disclaimer: I own Drea, Lysander, Maggie, Ella, Raze, and Cricket. Rachel, Jenny, and Christine own themselves. Anyone else I'm not too sure of.

Cricket

"Colleen! Did you do my homework!" My God, Chris is annoying. I glared at the boy next to me.

" Did you get a brain? No. So I did not do your homework." I frowned and pulled out Drea's copy of the Prophecy.

"I'll pay you to do it now." I rolled my eyes. _Every single day…_

"Bite me Barbie" I muttered. Drea turned around from in front of me and raised an eyebrow at me. Then she paled. I turned around to see what freaked her out.

"Uh-oh…" I whispered to myself. I hurriedly shoved the Prophecy into the black hole known as my backpack.

"Cricket, doesn't that look like Dracula from Van Helsing?" Christine said to me. I raised my eyebrow. Only Christine.

"Yup." I looked nervously at the vampire walking up to the teacher's desk.

"Greetings, I am Mr. Dragulia. I will be your substitute teacher in Latin for the foreseeable future…" I suddenly felt very happy that I did my homework.

S M O K E A N D M I R R O R S

Latin class finally ended forty-five minutes later. Dracula was evil! He spent ten minutes reaming out Chris for not doing his homework. Everybody pretty much behaved after that.

Note to Self: Vampires have nasty tempers. Don't provoke them.

At the end of class, Dracula asked Chris to stay after class. Drea and I looked at each other. Then, a thought ran through my head. I grabbed Drea and Christine and dragged then to a bathroom.

I checked that it was empty, then turned to Christine. "I need your cell phone." Ella taught Carl to use a phone, and Gwen wrote the numbers he couldn't answer.

It picked up on the second ring. "H-hello?" I smirked slightly.

"Carl, it's Cricket. We have a problem. Dracula's our new Latin teacher." I waited five seconds for that to sink in.

"My god! I'll go tell Van Helsing! This is not good!" I thought furiously.

"Carl, calm down! Tell Van Helsing to wait and HIDE, we can't risk him getting arrested. Oh, and Carl, was there a lot of vampires at the masqurade ball?"

"Yes, thousands why?" Oh, (deleted ) I hope I'm not right. I'll run it by Drea first.

"I'll tell you later, okay? Bye!" I hung up. Drea was trying to calmly explain the situation to Christine, which was working fairly well.

"I hate to brake it to you guys, but we have a new problem," I scowled. It's not fair, really. We're just kids.

"Worse than Dracula trying to kill us?" Drea shot back mock-sweetly.

"Carl confirmed that there was thousands of vampires at the masquerade ball. And vampires only kill one or two people a month. Dracula killed thousands. Get the picture?" I pushed my wild hair out of my face and scowled.

"My God…" Drea yelped. "They get turned into vampires! And Chris is with Dracula!"

"Well, he's probably a human shake right now." Christine commented cynically.

"Sadly true," Drea said wryly. "Let's warn the others."

S M O K E A N D M I R R O R S

"Wait, so Chris is a vampire now? Freaky." Raze commented.

"So what are we gonna do about it?" Ella demanded. She was pretty ticked off. Scientific first and foremost, she was probably still in shock.

"Pray we don't get killed?" Lysander and Gwen chorused. Oh, yeah, they like each other. When ARE they going to admit it?

"CRICKET! GUESS WHAT!" My friend Jenny yelled. Her nickname is Drunken Butterfly, because she's sort of a ditz. My marginally saner friend Rachel was following her.

"Brilliant, Jenny, just yell it for all the world to hear!" Rachel replied disapprovingly. I snickered. Those two were better than cable, really, they were.

Raze walked up to them. "Calm down you two, and tell us whatever it is."

"We were coming here, to lunch-" Rachel began.

Jenny cut her off. "When we saw a woman with dark hair-"

"With Mr. Dragulia-" Rachel continued, fiddling with her bracelet.

"and they turned into bat thingys!" Jenny finished triumphantly. We looked at each other.

"This is so not good." We chorused.

That's when all h--- broke loose.

A/N: I did this whole thing without using the word said! This is gonna be about 12 chapters or so, w/ epilogue.

Next time: In which vampires are fought, and Gwen loses it.


End file.
